Mom, just give it to God

This is an email that I receive via MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers). It's a group I joined recently so that the boys and I could have something special to look forward to every month. And it really is special. Our local Fayetteville chapter is held at a church with a nursery. Abe gets to hang out with kids his age, Isaiah is held and coddled by sweet elderly ladies, and I get to enjoy constructive time with other SAHMs. It's pretty fantastic.

I feel like I should mention that this message is not relevant to me because it mentions Christmas (since we don't keep it). But because I am constantly finding my anxiety levels unmanagable.

[And in case you can't read it, here's the text: I Give Up, by Jacy Bowers
It’s the end of the holiday season and I’m just managing to catch my breath. But the call to start the New Year off with a bang still beckons. How do I keep the post-Christmas stress at bay? I have a feeling the answer lies within a recent family lesson.

Just two days before Christmas, my family prepared for a relaxing dinner out as a sort of reward for the busyness we knew would follow. The kids were excited to get out and I was looking forward to a nice dinner with the family, with someone else doing the serving.
 
But then we received a call from a tenant with a clogged toilet at our rental property. Finding a plumber with good rates and the ability to complete the job before Christmas proved a struggle. Remaining relaxed at our family dinner an hour later when the plumber called to say he’d need to charge more in order to finish the job proved an even bigger struggle.

I got off the phone and couldn’t help but start venting to my husband about the added cost. The stress threatened to bubble over, then my seven-year-old said, “Mom, you just need to give it to God.” Wow, the simple faith out of the mouth of a child. He was exactly right: it was out of my control. I looked at him and decided I was just going to enjoy my yummy food and my precious family. God can handle the rest.

Dear God, thank you for how my child shows me the faith that I need to hear, so simple and honest.]

Anyway, as the message reads, there are times we just have to let go of the stress of a trial and let God take care, do the job He promises us He'll do. Clearly the Sermon on the Mount is tremendously encouraging EVERY time I read it, but because of a current woe, it speaks to me. (As I think about it, there are a lot of things that are going on in a few of the communities I am a part of that are truly humanly unmanageable!)Thank you MOPS, and, more importantly, I give thanks to my Creator God for peace of mind. It's so refreshing!

Matthew 6:25-34 -- Therefore do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For after all these things the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.